The Cave of Worlds
by dreamingfifi
Summary: Friend, I have a question for you. If you were a scared, 14 year old girl who believes she's trapped in her subconscious, and you saw a monster charging at you with a bloody sword, would you run?
1. Hikallaba Minalô!

After a rough punch-it out with my prologue, I have decided to delete it. Now I have another friend helping me iron out a few wrinkles in the plot, TheScornfulRoman, so, here is yet another revision. I'm sorry if you are tired of them, but I am a perfectionist, and this story refuses to leave me alone.

Disclaimer: In this story, I use some settings from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and some of his characters, like Galadriel, and I claim no copyrights of any of Tolkien's great creation.

I ought to tell you about pronunciations of what I created. The "e" is always pronounced "ee". So Vernala sounds like Veern-al-a. "É" is pronounced like a normal "e". Yes, I have created a pseudo language to go with the world being introduced. Plus a map. And mythology. And history. And the common dress. And the… I'll be silent now. Yes, I do have a life; thank-you for your concern.

Read and enjoy.

**THE CAVE OF WORLDS  
Chapter One – Hikallaba Minalô! (She Fell From the Sky!)**

Algebra made no sense, especially at 11 o'clock at night. Jessica's pencil doodled at the graph she was supposed to be figuring out. In her imagination, the lines became a mighty stallion with Queen Elizabeth perched on top. "Oh, poor little child," the queen said, reaching down with her pale, graceful hand. "You need not do that horrid math." Then, with a gracious smile, the queen vanished, and Jessica's algebra was still unfinished.

She sighed and continued her doodle, drawing detail on a dress. Doodling was her favorite pastime in algebra class, because the teacher was boring and the subject matter even more so. The desk she sat at was covered in her algebra homework doodles, and its drawers had many more such sketches piled in them from biology and health class.

This doodle was a picture of herself, well, almost herself. She had given herself thick, shiny, straight, black hair instead of her thin, dark-brown hair, and a slim figure instead of her real, overweight one that she hid with baggy clothes. Jessica liked to think her drawings were good, but she was too terrified to show them to anyone. Besides, they were her fantasies; it was nobody's business what she wanted to be.

Loud music and drunken shouts interrupted her thoughts; her stoner next-door neighbors were having another party. She hated this neighborhood. Jessica turned up the radio and tried to concentrate on her homework, but it seemed to be out of focus. The lines on the graph became symbols caved into dull grey stone. Jessica sat back, realizing that she was having a hallucination.

She had seen this hallucination before. The first time it had appeared, Jessica was nine years old, playing by herself on the playground. It frightened her so badly that she ran to the school nurse, thinking that she had schizophrenia. The nurse told her parents, and they found Jessica a psychiatrist. Dr. Shirman met her whenever her parents could afford it, and gave her cherry-flavored lollipops. Her latest visit had been initiated by an accident.

The hallucination always the same: a door, a heavy stone door, covered in odd symbols. A triangle with three diagonal lines through it took up the larger part of the door, and a diamond shape inside the triangle was full of little symbols, many so tiny she couldn't see them without getting closer. Jessica had tried to see the symbols on the door, but the door never got any closer and after enough inching forward and squinting she had forgotten where she was and had run into a wall.

While listening to Jessica explain what had happened, Dr. Shirman had folded his hands in his lap and said, "You told me that it is a door; have you ever tried to open it?"

Jessica shook her head.

"Perhaps you should open it. If you do," he mimed an opening door with his hands, " you will know what is beyond it. Knowing what lies beyond it will remove the fear of it, and the door might stop appearing."

Now, Jessica waved her hand through the door and pretended she was holding the sliding bolt that kept the door closed. She felt something cold touch the palm of her hand. The bolt seemed solid, made of metal. Jessica groped at the bolt until her hands rested on the pin used to open it, and shoved. For a moment nothing happened, but then a heavy, low, grating noise filled her ears. Suddenly she felt a strange sensation in her chest, as if someone was roughly pulling her up, out of her chair. It was the heavy feeling from flying up into the air on a roller coaster, all of her guts squishing into her belly button. Just as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

When Jessica opened her eyes, she stood at the mouth of a cave, not a natural cave full of stalagmites and slime, but one that was carved into the mountain, with its entrance made of huge blocks of elaborately wrought limestone. Along the sides of the entrance someone had carved strange hieroglyphs; to Jessica they resembled only chicken scratches. Sunlight illuminated the dusty red floor for a few feet in, then vanished into a far more powerful darkness.

_I must still be hallucinating,_ Jessica thought. She took a step closer, but she felt a sudden chill. The more she looked at it, the deeper and more unnatural the shadows became. She turned around to poke about the outside for a while, where sunlight still ruled. She would conquer that dream-fear later.

The cave was cut into the side of a small desert island, she discovered. She could see the shoreline only about a hundred meters from where she stood, but between her and the shore odd and interesting artifacts were scattered. Knives, buttons, cups, metal things of every imaginable and unimaginable use were lying in the dry desert sand outside the cave. She pulled a pretty little necklace with a red jewel set in it from the ground, and stuffed it into her pocket. A sudden urge to put it back before anyone saw her act overtook her, and she pulled it out of her pocket. The jewel sparkled brilliantly, and Jessica hastily stuffed it back in. Her body came alive with goose bumps, as though someone was standing behind her, taking a deep breath to scream accusations at her. She turned around, but no one was there.

Behind a pile of golden platters, she found a path. It led to the shoreline, so Jessica looked around in the dry, yellow dunes by the water. She found a very old sword wedged between two rocks. The leather and wood in the hilt had rotted away from centuries of waves and wind washing over it, and it looked rather funny, just sticking up there in the tide line. She ran over to it, and tried to yank it out, but it wouldn't budge, and she got her shoes wet. Jessica scampered away from the water laughing, briefly wondering why the blade hadn't rusted from the water.

She wandered around until she found a low cliff overlooking the bay. A large rock was perched near the edge of the cliff, so she climbed it and stared at the glimmering ocean. From her perch, Jessica saw that a little ways out under the water, there were chariots, shields, spears, and swords sitting in the water like so many lost souls. It was strange. So incredibly silent. For the first time she realized how empty everything was. There was no grass anywhere. No birds in the air. No life. Just the evidence that there once had been. A little unnerved by this realization, she jumped down and headed back to the cave.

Once there, she explored outside the entrance for a while. There was nothing much of interest there, just mountains and mountains of junk that she picked through trying to find something interesting. A triangular gold piece caught her attention, so she stuffed it in her pocket. Seeing nothing else of interest, she walked back to the cave entrance. Jessica was about to step in, but stopped. The cave seemed to have a feeling of dread hanging around it, like a heavy shroud or a veil in widow's black. The soft smell of something rotting crept through the air to her, and she stepped backward, and tripped and fell. Jessica thought she was going to hit the ground, but she kept on falling. She screamed and suddenly, it stopped.

She was lying on the floor by her desk. Her mom was hurrying over, her brows furrowed. "What's wrong? Did you fall?" she asked in her heavy Arabian accent.

Jessica stared at her mom for a second. "I think I fell asleep; I had a weird dream."

Her mother nodded, gave her a hug, and said, "Well, don't worry about it; dreams aren't real. It's midnight; go to bed."

"Mom, it was about the door. I opened it."

"What is behind it?" Her mother picked up the pencil that had rolled off Jessica's desk.

"A desert island." Jessica made a face. "I thought my inner conscious would be more interesting."

"Well," her mother said, straightening her headscarf. "I came to say that it is almost midnight. You need to go to bed. We'll talk about this in the morning. I'll call your doctor."

"Okay, mom."

"I'll see you in the morning."

"Okay," Jessica mumbled and stumbled downstairs to brush her teeth.

She took her time brushing her teeth and undressing. Something about the shadow intrigued her more than it frightened her. How could she go back? Perhaps she could go back when she was half asleep, or perhaps, she could try meditating, though she didn't know how to meditate. The cave wasn't real; after all, it was a dream world. As she pulled off her shoes a little bit of yellow sand fell out, but she didn't notice it. She squeezed out of her jeans and saw a strange lump in a pocket as she carelessly threw them on the floor. Curious, she poked at it with her toe. The soft sound of tiny pieces of metal scraping against each other was barely audible. Perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her because she hadn't explored the desert island enough.

She finished undressing, pulled on her hideous, neon green flannel nightgown, and reached into her jeans pocket. Jessica almost yelled as her hand revealed the necklace and the coin from the cave. She pulled the necklace out and held it up to the light. It was pretty; the stone in the center seemed to give off a strange light. Jessica crawled into bed and put on the necklace. She lifted her arms and tried to clear her mind of all thoughts. Instantly, the door appeared before her. The door opened easily, as though its hinges had been oiled, and the opening sucked Jessica onto the desert island.

This time she walked into the cave, despite the nagging sense that she shouldn't be there. Another door with the strange glyph on it stood to the left, hidden in an unnatural shadow. Next to it, the cave took a sharp turn to the right, and dissipated into vague darkness. Sitting alongside the wall was a pile of papers, scrolls, and huge books covered in a language that she couldn't read, but which looked oddly familiar. Jessica peered around the corner, but an eerie whisper began, a chant in two languages at the same time. "Dnara-lu ma," and "Come here." She decided that the door was less creepy.

Jessica opened the door, but saw nothing beyond it. She peered farther in, took a step through the doorway, and found there was no floor. She lost her balance and fell into the black, inky gloom.

Stars sprinkled the world around her, as if she was in space. A tiny dot grew before her. It looked like Earth, except that its continents were shaped differently. Clouds drifted over dry, yellow land and gathered beside black mountains. A swirling hurricane grew in the sea, while the sun shone brightly.

As the planet grew bigger and bigger, it came apparent that she was going to collide with it. She twisted and squirmed, but the planet loomed larger and larger. There was no escape. She held her arms out to embrace it, and entered the atmosphere. To her surprise, she didn't burn up. She fell very slowly. There was no wind. She turned her attention to the world below her. A dark green smudge blossomed in a pool of dull brown, bordered by sharp, white mountains. The green was a forest, she realized. The brown was grassland. The mass of green separated itself into trees, and suddenly, Jessica felt the wind. It began slowly at first, but then it pushed against her, trying in vain to stop her progress. The wind made her eyes water, blinding her. She didn't know until it was too late that she was heading straight for a very tall tree.

A great deal of interesting history had occurred in the western part of Middle-earth by the early Second Age, but here in the East, in Fangorn, the world was relatively untouched. An Ent soaked up rainwater and light as he had done for hundreds of years, watching a grove of cantankerous oaks. He had left his duties to drink by the stream, as he did every morning. This morning would be like any other, if a child hadn't have dropped from the sky and onto one of the oldest trees in the grove. The limbs of the tree were sorely damaged its the attempt to catch the child. The child's forehead had speckled the bark of one of the greater limbs with red when it struck. All this the oaks explained to the Ent. Explanations didn't change the fact that the child was motionless, bleeding from a deep gash in her forehead, and that her limbs were bent in far too many ways. Ents know little of children, especially injured ones, so the Ent left in a brisk pace to find some Elves.

Luckily, his search was not long. He met the son of his Elven friends, named Ladrengil, who had been visiting Fangorn with his son and another Elf. They were taking their time walking during this bright and cheerful morning and enjoying a chat with the boy, when the Ent found them on the trail and hailed them. "Do you not think it a little unnatural that you walk with such haste?" greeted Ladrengil.

"Hoom... no. I found a child; I do not know how to help it."

"Where did you find this child?" asked Ladrengil's companion.

"My oaks say that she fell from the sky," the Ent paused, "though they are very jolly trees; they may make tales for their merriment. Hoom, the child is broken, I fear."

"That is sad news. Lead me there." The Ent lifted them to his shoulders, and strode back south in his strangely hasty fashion.

When they reached the spot, flies had already gathered. The child's cushioned face was already disfigured with red, infected pox, and the blood was starting to clot over her head wound, in a feeble attempt at self-preservation. The child's leg lay at an odd angle.

Ladrengil turned to the Ent, sighed, and said, "I will take care of this. You can leave if you like. I am certain that you have other things to do." The Ent thought for a second, and slowly strode away.

"_Daddy, what happened_?" asked his son in Elvish.

"_I must dig a place for her to sleep_."

"_She would want to sleep underground_?"

"_Yes. Run along towards Lothlórien, I will meet you there later_."

"_Are you sure, Daddy_?"

"_Yes, Curulaer. If you run fast enough, I will not meet you till Caras Galadhon_."

Curulaer grinned at the challenge, and took off at a break-neck speed to the north. Ladrengil looked to his friend and said, "_Make certain that he travels in safety_." His friend nodded, and took off after Curulaer.

Ladrengil sighed at the unlimited energy of youth, and pulled out a knife. When he was certain that the Ent and his son were no longer in sight, he carefully cut a branch off a tree, taking care not to harm the tree, and sharpened the branch till it could serve as a digging tool. He paused for a second to look at the girl. A deep sorrow in him stirred as he thought of the parents of the dead child.

Now that he looked closer, it looked almost as if she was breathing. Puzzled, he reached for her neck to feel for a pulse. As he did, he saw a thin, golden chain. He lightly touched it, and an invisible hand grabbed him by his shirt and threw him back. He struggled to his feet, but tiny, icy cold hands clang onto one of his wrists. He tried to pull himself free, but wherever the hands touched became numb, and the numbness spread into his chest, encircled his heart, and dragged his mind into a dark, icy sea. The last thing he saw before his eyes clouded over was a transparent figure standing over the child.

At this precise moment the dead girl awakened and threw up.

_Author's Note_

To see the symbol that was carved on the door, go here: (Delete the spaces) h t t p / w w w . freewebs . c o m /3starvingwriters/sanctuary. J P G

The chapter title is in Adûnaic.

_The reviewer's guide:_  
Did you understand what was happening?  
What do you think of the introduced characters?  
Is the foreshadowing good?  
Are your Mary Sue alarm bells ringing? If so, why?  
Does it leave you wanting to read on?  
What do you expect to happen next?  
What parts of the prose do you think need to be improved?  
What grammar or spelling mistakes did you see?  
Did anything in this chapter bother you while reading it?  
What did you like about it?


	2. Kisaphdahê?

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over anything Tolkien created.

**THE CAVE OF WORLDS  
Chapter Two - Kisaphdahê? (Do you understand me?)**

Jessica lay back down and stared at the tree above her. The image was out of focus, and the tree seemed to be reaching down to touch her, but trees couldn't move like that, she knew. She closed her eyes, hoping her universe would stop behaving so silly.

The world was nothing but pain and grass tickling her ears. Her head hurt; her neck hurt; and a blade of white-hot agony stabbed through her right shin. She opened her eyes again. At first her vision was clear, but something trickled into her eyes, clouding them. She rubbed the stuff out. It warmed her fingers and clung to them, oddly viscous. Curious, she held her hands before her face. Blood stained palms, like a brand upon a wrongdoer. She tried to wipe it off on the grass, but blood was already there.

Feeling bile rise in her throat, she sat up and tried to scoot herself out of the red smear, but her right leg screamed in protest, using waves of agony to give Jessica a strict lecture in what not to do with a broken leg. She cried out, the lesson learned. All of the birds flew out of the tree she was under, causing a shower of wilted leaves. Careful not to move her broken leg, she lay down and closed her eyes to keep herself from crying.

A single blade of grass had somehow gotten into her ear and tickled it fearfully like a bug. She turned her head away from it, to find herself looking into a man's eyes. At first, she was too startled to move and only stared back. She blinked, but the man didn't. His expression was frozen. His mouth gaped, and his steel-grey eyes were open wide, as though in terror. There was something not quite right about the way his face was shaped; his cheeks were too high, his eyes too big, his nose too long, his ears too big. She felt like Little Red Riding Hood looking into the wolf's face. This wolf in a man's skin didn't move, but his hippy-length, black hair hung over his face and stirred with every breath he took.

After a while, she became tired of staring at only his face, waiting for him to blink or move, and pulled herself up onto her elbow. The man was really tall. He lay on his side curled into a ball, and even then he appeared to be over six feet. All six feet, except his head, were covered with green and grey clothing and a warm looking, dark green cloak.

_So this is what lay beyond the metaphorical door._ Suddenly, Jessica disliked her subconscious mind much more. She was there. _Now what?_ Perhaps if she fell asleep, she could go back to her real bed.

She lay her head down and tried to sleep, but she couldn't stop shivering. Would he mind if she used his cloak? She cleared her throat. "Excuse me, mister."

The man didn't respond.

"Pardon me. Can I borrow your cloak? I'm cold."

The man didn't move.

Perhaps if she pulled a corner of the cloak out from under him she could wrap herself in that. She grabbed a corner of it and yanked. The man took a deep breath. "_Curulaer, iuitho goll lîn_," he muttered.

"Huh?"

The man sat up as though someone had poured icy water all over him. "_Man le_?" he shouted. "_Man carnen a Churulaer_?"

"What? What did you say?"

The man looked confused for a moment, but then he sighed and lay back in the grass. "_Nin henial_?"

Jessica stared at him.

"_Hanyalyen_?" He spoke this sentence with a different accent, one that had longer vowels and a slower cadence. It reminded Jessica of her mother praying in Arabic.

"_Kisaphdahê_?" This language had harsher consonants in it, but something seemed familiar about the odd tongue. He was trying to figure out what language she spoke, she realized.

"_Kisaphdahê_?" he repeated, watching her face.

The words separated themselves, and a high-pitched voice whispered inside her head, "You-understand-me?" She nodded.

"_Kisaphdahê_?" This time the translator used the man's voice as he spoke. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes!" Jessica grinned and nodded her head vigorously.

The man let loose a relieved sigh. "Good. This will be easier."

"What will be easier?"

"Conversing," he mumbled. "I am a _Nimir_ from _Inzilolôrêth_, as I believe you call us. Forgive me if I make errors when speaking in your language; I have not spoken it for many years."

"I didn't understand you at first, but you're doing fine now."

"I am relieved." The Nimir sat up and examined her face. He pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows to make a worried expression. "Child, there is a cut on your forehead that I need to mend before we waste more time talking, and your leg needs to be set in a splint. I am not a healer, but I can help." He pulled his pack off his shoulders and unbuckled his blanket. Taking out his knife, he cut a long strip of cloth off of his bedroll. "Be still, this will sting," he whispered. "The cut on your face has tree bark in it."

She nodded and closed her eyes as tightly as she could. First, he splashed lukewarm water from his canteen on the wound; then he picked the bits of bark out so quickly that Jessica didn't have a chance to feel pain until it was over. The man wrapped her head very carefully, so that he didn't touch the wound with his hands, but the cloth put enough pressure on the cut to slow the bleeding and numb the pain. Then it was time to see to her leg.

"This is going to hurt a lot, isn't it?" Jessica's voice squeaked involuntarily.

The man gave her a comforting smile. "Lie still. Squeeze a handful of grass to keep your mind off it. This break isn't very bad; I've had to mend such an injury before. All that needs to be done is move the two pieces together and hope they heal correctly. Lie as still as you can." He pulled her nightgown away from the break and peered at it.

"Are you sure you know how to do this?"

"My son broke his arm when he fell from a horse two summers ago. I set the break." He laid his hands gently on her leg; her skin ached at the touch.

The man suddenly leapt back, gasping and shaking his hands as though to rid them of something.

"What?" Jessica's voice reached new octaves. "What's wrong? Is it bad?"

"I need to rest," he paused to catch his breath, "before trying something that requires a steady hand." He collapsed onto the ground.

"What happened?"

"I am not certain." A wilted leaf fell to the ground before him. "I was searching for a good grip on your leg, and my hands became numb."

The Nimir picked up the wilted leaf and twisted it in the air above him, then flexed each of his fingers. "Their feeling has returned."

Jessica nodded and squeezed her eyes shut, yanking out two large handfuls of grass.

The man lightly touched her leg, and jerked his hand back. He tried again with the other hand but yanked it away. He glanced at Jessica. The grass in her hands wilted and shriveled up. He leapt back with a yell, his eyes wide with horror. "_Man le_? _Man nad_?" the man stuttered.

"Nimir, I can't understand you! What's wrong? Is my leg going to be able to heal?"

"_Balan_? _Maear_? _Raug_? _Gollor_? _Ûn_?"

"What are you saying? Speak Eng… I mean, speak my language!" yelled Jessica, gesturing wildly. The man stared at her, his face regaining color. "Please?" she added quietly.

"Your words don't move with your face."

"Neither do yours."

Standing up, the Nimir pointed at her hand. "The grass is dead." Jessica opened her palm and looked at it. The blades were brittle and brown.

"But, I'm lying in a spot of dead grass."

He pointed to the tree behind her. "That tree was green and healthy when I arrived. Now it wilts."

"Maybe it wasn't healthy."

Stooping, the man plucked a green branch covered in fresh leaves from a bush by his knee and tossed it to Jessica. It landed in her lap. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Pick it up. Hold it."

Scowling, Jessica picked the branch up, but her scowl vanished in a shriek as she hurled the dead limb from her. "Child, what are you?" the man asked.

"I don't know; I thought I was a child." Gingerly she dusted the dead leaves off her lap; unwilling tears began to form in her eyes. She began to mumble, as though she was trying to convince herself, "It's all in my head. It's all in my head!"

Suddenly, the man picked up his pack and opened it. "Are you hungry?"

Confused, Jessica nodded.

He pulled a wafer of some sort out of his pack and tossed it into her lap. "What is it?"

He shrugged. "Eat it."

"It's not poisonous, is it?"

"It depends," he said. "If you like, I'll take a bite of it first."

Jessica nodded, and the man took a large bite of it, chewed, and swallowed it. "The worst of it is that it is dry. It isn't poisonous." Then he gave her the wafer.

She studied it closely. It looked a little like a homemade graham cracker. Cautiously, she nibbled the edge of it, watching the Nimir's reaction. Surprisingly, it was sweet, with a sharp spice that she'd never tasted before, which lingered pleasantly on her tongue. She took a larger nibble. The cold disappeared as the first nibble reached her stomach. She took a bite. The Nimir smiled gently. "That is _lembas_, as it is called in my language. I don't know your word for it. Don't eat too much at one time, or you will sicken. If you were evil, you wouldn't have been able to eat it. It would be like poison."

"So, I'm good?"

Laughing, he replied, "I don't know if you are a good person, but I know that you aren't a slave of Morgoth. I don't know what sort of curse you are under, but I know that you are the victim, not the cause." He plucked a green blade of grass and touched it to her hand. It withered away in seconds. He plucked another blade of grass and touched it to the fabric of Jessica's nightgown. Nothing happened. "I believe that I have found a way around this curse."

"Really? What?"

Unpinning his cloak, he wrapped it around his hands, laid his hands on Jessica's leg, and held them there for a few seconds. Nothing happened. "This is a curse on your skin, and cloth protects me from it. Ready yourself for the setting of the bone." Jessica nodded and wadded up as much grass as she could in her hands. Without a warning, the man wrenched the bone in place. Jessica's mouth and eyes were wide open from surprise; she couldn't breath for a few seconds.

When she finally could move, all that she could say came out as high-pitched, unintelligible blubbering. The Nimir shoved a piece of lembas in her mouth as he tied straight, dead branches to her leg. After her hands stopped shaking and her voice came out of the stratosphere, she glowered at the man and asked, "So, what's your name?"

He looked up, eyebrows arched, and said, "Ladrengil Handirion."

"What? Can you say it again?"

"Lad-ren-gil Han-dir-ion," he repeated. "I'm not certain how to say it as a name in your language, but it has a special meaning. Ladrengil means 'a valley of stars', and it comes from a vision that my mother had in the hour of my birth. She saw me in a circular valley with mountains so high and dark all that could be seen were the stars above. And Handirion simply means 'son of Handir', my father."

"Ladrengil," Jessica said, trying out the sound of it. "Nice to meet you. My name is Jessica Lisa Albright. My mom is an immigrant from Palestine and she wanted me to have an American name, so she picked the name that came up the most often in the phone book."

"What is a fon-bûc?"

"A phone book is a book full of names and addresses."

"That sounds useful for city life, Chessecalisa Albraet."

"No, you're saying it wrong! Jess-i-ca Al-bright."

"Hesseca Albraet?"

"Jessica Albright."

"Gess? Iess? Forgive me, but I cannot pronounce it. May I give you a name to call you by?"

Jessica nodded.

"Nethwen," he said with barely a second of thought.

"Does it have a meaning?"

"It means 'youthful girl'. You are a child in these perilous woods, for that I named you." He sighed heavily. "I don't recognize the places that you spoke of, Amérecan and Palestaen. Where are your parents?"

"My parents are at home, in America." Jessica paused. How could she explain that he was in her head, her subconscious mind? Where would America be in comparison to this strange medieval world that seemed to be conjured from various fantasy novels that she'd read? Would Eddard Stark appear next? Would Merlin pop out of a bush? What about the tooth fairy?

Author's Note:

"What do 'Nin henial?' 'Hanyalyen?' and 'Kisaphdahê?' mean?"  
Ladrengil was asking, "Do you understand me?" in every language he knew. The first is Sindarin; the second is Quenya; and the third is Adûnaic.

Translations from Sindarin:  
Curulaer, iuitho goll lîn - Curulaer, use your own cloak.  
Man le? - Who are you?  
Man carnen a Churulaer? - What happened to Curulaer?  
Man le? Man nad? - What are you? What thing?  
Balan? Maear? Raug? Gollor? Ûn? - Vala? Maia? Demon? Magician? Monster?

Translations from Adûnaic:  
Nimir - Elf  
Inzilolôrêth - Lothlórien (reconstructed)

The reviewer's guide:

Did you understand what was happening?  
What made your Mary Sue alarm bells ring, if anything?So, what are your theories about how I crossed the language block?Was there too much pain?  
Was the dialogue believable?  
Does it leave you wanting to read on?  
What do you expect to happen next?  
What parts of the prose do you think need to be improved?  
What grammar or spelling mistakes did you see?  
Did anything in this chapter bother you while reading it?  
What did you like about it?


	3. Nimîr ‘nAmatthani

Disclaimer: I have no publishing or money rights to Middle-earth or anything else Tolkien created that I'm using.

**THE CAVE OF WORLDS  
Chapter Three – Nimîr 'nAmatthani (Elves of Aman)**

The tooth fairy hadn't shown up. Not even the Easter bunny graced Jessica with his appearance. Instead, Ladrengil had bombarded her with questions about her home, as though he was trying to figure out where she lived by its description. He concluded that she probably came from a place called "Yôzayân". He asked her several times if she had travelled here with the "Adûnaim" and somehow gotten separated from her family on the way. He voiced the thought several times that her fall probably was the missing link, and that they had thought she was dead, as he at first had thought as well.

In return, she learned that Inzilolôrêth was a forest so beautiful that the trees shone with gold, and every person who could string a tune together tried to make a song for it. "Fairest of all singers is my son," Ladrengil repeated for the nth time. "My chest opens to let my heart fly free when his voice is singing alone."

"So you said," Jessica sighed. Ladrengil had spread his immense cloak on the ground for her to lie on without killing anything. By now it was early afternoon, and the air was becoming stiflingly hot in the sunshine, where Ladrengil had put her to keep the trees from danger. At home it was mid-winter, and to save money on the energy bill, her parents turned the thermostat off and dressed everyone in sweaters during the day and thick, flannel nightgowns during the night, which Jessica was beginning to regret as the early summer sun pelted her brow and made sweat bead on her forehead. This reminded her that when she left home, it had been about midnight. Her mental clock was telling her that it was five in the morning, and trying to force her to go to sleep.

She desperately tried to keep awake by making an algebraic equation for the amount of jetlag she was experiencing and guessing how many time zones she was from home. She became so wrapped up in her calculation that she began to mutter it out loud.

"D equals the number of times I have drifted off per breath that Ladrengil has taken; X equals the number of hours since I have landed here; T equals twenty-four, for the hour that my mind thought it was when I landed here; and Y equals how tired I am. DX+TY. DXY-T. X(Y-T)/D."

Jessica stopped. Ladrengil was staring at her. "My breathing is equal to 'di'? What were you talking about? Is the heat affecting you?"

"No." Jessica blinked rapidly, trying to keep her head clear enough to answer. "It's something that I had to learn in school." Her words were slurring. "Hade… hated it, but I need to stay awa-" She yawned. Next thing she knew, she was wrapped up like a tortilla in Ladrengil's cloak in the shade, and he was pouring lukewarm water on her face and neck. Her hands and feet felt like they were on fire. "Awake," Jessica muttered. She opened her eyes. Ladrengil had sat her up in his lap and was holding his water skin to her lips.

"Drink," he whispered. "I must to carry you to the stream, and you must to stay awake." He busily gathered up his pack and put it on his back. "Nethwen, stay awake."

Jessica nodded slowly as Ladrengil picked her up. "Stay awake," she repeated.

The journey to the stream could have taken hours or seconds, Jessica didn't know. All she could do was answer Ladrengil's "Stay awake!" by repeating it. Then suddenly, the jostling stopped; the "Stay awake" chant ceased, and Ladrengil was forcing her to gulp down another mouthful of that horrid, lukewarm water. She had an odd picture in her head of the snow covered playground, and her bare legs being buried in the snow by her laughing peers. She was about to protest when she opened her eyes. She was sitting in a stream. Ladrengil was splashing water on her face and muttering something under his breath. The snowy playground was nowhere to be seen.

"Ladrengil!" Jessica turned to the new voice, to see a very tall woman with black hair running to them, carrying a jar. "_I firieth al-thlaew_?"

"_Nethwen echuia_!" Ladrengil answered.

"What?"

The tall woman stooped, filling the jar with water from the stream. "Nethwen," she said, smiling kindly, "_Sogo hen_."

"What?" Jessica looked up at Ladrengil. "What did she say?"

"She offers you a drink."

Jessica took the jar and stared at the water. "But it came straight from the steam; it's not clean!"

He gaped at her as though she had told him he was really an insect. "This water is very clean!" he said at last. "They don't keep their livestock upstream, and they put waste in a pit yonder."

"But this is the wilderness; all of the water is dirty."

"_Man den presta_?" the woman asked, looking back and forth between the two.

"_E nautha i nen gwaur_."

The woman stepped into the stream and knelt in the water before Jessica. Holding the jar before her, she looked into Jessica's eyes. Jessica's insides froze up; she couldn't breathe. The woman's eyes had fire in them, and they seemed to burn a pathway into Jessica's soul. Finally the woman looked away and took a long draught, then offered Jessica the jar. She took it without any further protests.

Several hours later, she had learned that the woman was Tuilineth, and that she was Ladrengil's mother. She didn't speak the language that Ladrengil called "Adûnaic," and she, like her husband Handir, was an exile from a far away place named "Amatthani." When Ladrengil mentioned the name of the place, she left the room to gaze to the west, and she stayed there until the stars had risen and the night chill had set in.

To Jessica's surprise, Handir made the food instead of Tuilineth, and he cooked extremely well. The evening meal was simple, only bread and soup, but it filled Jessica better than any meal she could remember. The food made Jessica feel a warm drowsiness that tingled in her fingers and toes. Her chin drooped, and they led her to a bed. Finally comfortable, she drifted off to sleep.

Somewhere in the night she began to dream. A child stood before her, but was it a child? Its skin was wrinkled, and its eyes had such advanced cataracts that they were completely white at first glance. The child was dressed in brightly colored robes, which sparkled with gems sewn into the cloth. It wore the same necklace that Jessica had found at the cave. They stood staring at each other for several minutes; then the ancient child raised its withered hand, palm upturned, and whispered, "Hepabasei, kilima-lu loh le plamapeara luk!"

Though she didn't actually understand the words themselves, her heart understood what the child meant – repent and be forgiven. She tried to say, "What did I do?" but the child's language came out instead.

The child reached forward and pulled the necklace out from under her nightgown. "Ngi sé la-leredn. Kilima-lu!"

"The necklace is mine; I found it!" Jessica replied, the words again coming out in a jumble of foreign sounds.

The ancient child grabbed Jessica's hand and held out its gnarled finger. It glowed like a cattle brand, and the child began to draw on the back of Jessica's hand. First it made a V, then another V on top of it, upside down. Then it drew a square on top of that, intersecting with the V's in the same places that the V's intersected each other. "Lan téth sé pléígna," it said, the words sounding suspiciously like: "So be it!"

Immediately, flames leapt into the back of her hand, gnawing fiercely at her bloodstained skin. Jessica shrieked, flailing her hand around, trying to beat out the fire. As the pain was beginning to become unbearable, Jessica awoke, still cradling her hand. Ladrengil's parents were holding her down, their faces pale and their jaws clenched. She held her hand before her face and saw the symbol that the ancient child had drawn branded into it.

"_Boe i bêd_," Tuilineth hissed, unwrapping the cloth from her hands. Ladrengil looked about to protest, but upon seeing her fierce face, he nodded meekly.

"What?"

"She says that you must leave."

"But..." Jessica choked out, trying to keep herself from crying.

"I will take you to my home, in Inzilolôrêth."

"_Ce al-hael, Ladrengil! Rhach dîn degitha Lothlórien_!" Tuilineth stormed out of the room.

Jessica turned to Ladrengil, but he shook his head. "I will not translate that. Let me see your hand." He glanced over it left the room, returning shortly with a small phial and a strip of cloth. "It heals burns," he explained, then poured the stinky goo in it onto the burn and wrapped it. "We will leave tomorrow."

* * *

The gray hints of morning were forming on the eastern horizon. Overcast blocked out what little sunlight peeped over the mountains. In the Albright household, the lights were turning on. Children had to be pulled from their beds, homework collected, food shoveled into them, and the drowsy students pushed out into the cold, bundled up like little Eskimos to walk to the local elementary. Jessica's mother opened the door to her room, and turned on the light. "Jessica, stop dawdling; it's time to go to school!"

Hearing no response, she walked in, kicking aside the dirty laundry that Jessica had left on the floor. "Jessica!" She stopped. The sheets were unmade, but there was no daughter in them. She stared at the empty bed for a few seconds before for running to the bathroom down the hall. No daughter. She tripped on a toy that one of her twin sons had left out in her rush to their bedroom. "Jake! Peter!" she yelled, trying not to let her voice crack.

"We're up! We're getting dressed!" one of them called back.

"Have you seen Jessica?"

"No."

A chair screeched as it was moved out of the way of the refrigerator in the kitchen. "She'll be downstairs, helping herself to breakfast," she whispered, and calmly descended the stairs. Her husband was groggily sucking down a cup of black coffee, and peering into the refrigerator for something to eat. "Edward, have you seen Jessica?" Her voice strained.

"No, why?"

She turned away. "It's probably nothing; she probably wanted to get to school early."

He set the coffee cup down, suddenly very awake. "Jess never wakes up early to go to school. A few weeks ago she threw a fit, pretending to be sick."

Wringing her hands, she turned around. Her face had turned a deathly grey color, as tough all of the blood had been leached out of it. "Last night she told me," she stopped, trying to regain her composure. "She told me she went trough the door from her daymares."

Edward peeked out the window, at the fresh blanket of snow on the ground, at the thermometer nailed to the windowsill. "Oh Hadil, it's so cold out there!" Spinning, he grabbed the telephone off the wall and began to dial. Nine… One… he couldn't finish. His body quaked with sobs, and he held Hadil to him as though he was dying in the cold himself.

* * *

Jessica was half asleep when Ladrengil pulled her out of bed. "Come! It is midmorning!"

"Can't I sleep…"

"No, you may not. Behold how high Ûrê is in the sky!" He gestured widely to the glassless window cut into the wall. A chilly morning draft came through it. The sun was just above the treetops, alighting their leaves like green jewels.

"But I'm so cold…"

"Then come to the fire and warm yourself." He gave her a walking cane that had been freshly carved. The grip was padded with wool cloth. "I made this for you, so that I need not carry you to relieve yourself ever again." Jessica blushed a violent purple, remembering the embarrassment she had suffered when Ladrengil had to help her use the pit that served for a toilet. "Remember to pick leaves before the need arises."

"Thanks," she mumbled and hobbled over to the fire, where some embers still glowed.

Why was her mind so full of inconveniences? The pain in her leg felt very real, her heatstroke the day before was real. The clumsy embarrassment of the pit the day before was real. And that dream with the ancient child, why was she in so much pain? In all of the frightening dreams that she could remember, she always woke up right before she hit the ground or the monster caught her. But in this one, the monster had gotten her.

"Here is some bread and cheese. And here," he plucked a large bundle off the table, "are some necessities that my parents gathered for you. They put shoes in there to save the ground from your feet and gloves so that you can touch something without killing it. Last but not least, my mother presents you with this cloak." He unfolded the heavy, dark green material. "That was mine when I was young."

Jessica stared at it, and limped over to the table. "Why are they being so kind? Last night I thought your mother was going to throw me out."

To her surprise, Ladrengil laughed. "Send a lone child out into the wilderness? No one would do such a thing. There are no friendly peoples for hosts of miles in any direction. The least they could do was give you supplies and send me with you. Thus, you are my responsibility. I will find your home, and I will bring you there if I must. To that I swear, for that is what I would expect if my son were lost in these vast wilds."

He looked to Jessica, but she wasn't listening. She was staring at the space before her. "The door, the door I came through is here!"

"What? Where? I see only the door to the yard."

"It's right in front of me," Jessica's voice squeaked. She reached out into the air before her and grabbed something. Then, Ladrengil saw.

The door was unlike any he had seen. It was made of gray stone, with great metal hinges that borrowed organically into the stone, as though the metal had been alive. It was then that Ladrengil saw the ground beneath Jessica's feet was changing, becoming sparkling obsidian, and her body and the door were transparent. She yanked on the pin; the door opened with a thunderous growl. Light came from beyond it, blinding Ladrengil for a second. His heart filled with fear, and he screamed, "No! Don't enter!" He reached to grab her, but a violent blast threw him back. When he opened his eyes, Jessica was lying on the ground a few feet away, coughing. The door and the volcanic glass floor were gone.

Jessica began chattering, "Someone was there. An old man was in the way. Something pushed me away from the door."

"That door is evil," Ladrengil gasped, brushing dust from himself. "I felt it in my heart. Don't go through the door again."

Author's Note

To see the symbol that was drawn on Jessica's hand: h t t p / w w w .freewebs. c o m/3starvingwriters/criminal. b m p

Adûnaic translations:  
Yôzayân – Númenor  
Adûnaim – Númenóreans  
Ûrê – the sun

Sindarin translations:  
I firieth al-thlaew? – Is the girl no longer ill?  
Nethwen echuia! – Nethwen awakens!  
Sogo hen . – Drink this.  
Man den presta? – What is the matter?  
E nautha i nen gwaur. – She thinks the water is dirty.  
Boe i bêd. - She must leave.  
Ce al-hael, Ladrengil! E degitha Lothlórien! – You are being unwise Ladrengil! Her curse will slay Lothlórien!

The Ancient Child wasn't speaking any language of Tolkien's. That language is mine; you may not use it.  
Translations:  
Hepabasei, kilima-lu loh le plamapeara luk! – Criminal, repent and I will forgive you!  
Ngi sé la-leredn. Kilima-lu! – This is not yours. Repent!  
Lan téth sé pléígna. – So be it.

_The reviewer's guide:_  
Did you understand what was happening?  
What do you think of the introduced characters?  
Are your Mary Sue alarm bells ringing? If so, why?  
What did you think of the parent's reactions?  
The use of foreign languages, did it work?  
Does it leave you wanting to read on?  
Did you see any grammar or spelling mistakes?  
Did anything in this chapter bother you while reading it?  
What did you like about it?


	4. Nimîr ‘nInzilolôrêth

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of what Tolkien created.

**THE CAVE OF WORLDS  
Chapter Four - Nimîr 'nInzilolôrêth (Elves of Lothlórien)**

It wasn't until they had ridden out of the dense forest and onto a vast, hilly plain with mountains glowering in the distance that Ladrengil spoke to Jessica any more than to say, "Eat this," or "Let us rest here." And, to compound Jessica's annoyance and irritation that the ride had given her, being wrapped in something from head to foot to protect the horse, he refused to answer any questions about why his parents wanted to be rid of her. Instead, he led the horse and looked only at the trail they were following.

"Stop twitching in the seat so," Ladrengil said, halting the horse to start the noon meal on the fourth day of their journey. "You annoy the horse."

"But my legs hurt," Jessica whined, grateful for even this small conversation. They did hurt though. Having never sat on a horse for longer than five minutes in her life, her thighs were unused to being stretched like this. They complained loudly to Jessica, and made her unable even to limp afterwards. Ladrengil had been forced to lift Jessica off the horse and carry her to her various privy needs, which both parties found embarrassing. Today, Jessica's one good leg was able to move enough to help her slide ungracefully to the ground. She greeted Ladrengil's helping hands with a scowl, so when Ladrengil finally began to talk, the mood immediately lightened.

"The trees have ears in that forest," he began. He was in the midst of making a small fire to cook on, and the smoke was blowing into Jessica's face, making her cough. "But now, I can speak my mind freely."

Jessica scooted to the side, out of the smoke. "Well?"

"My mother looked into your soul, and when she saw the burn on your hand, she told me she had seen its meaning in your eyes. She said that you are some sort of outcast, abandoned to rid the people of your curse. She said that the mark on your hand means 'criminal'. What truth do you find in that, if any?"

Jessica's cheeks flushed and she balled her fists. In her subconscious mind, this surely was the worst of her demons. Her mother was a Muslim from Palestine, and she was living in a small, western town with predominately white Christians. With the recent attacks September Eleventh still smoldering, it was rumored that Jessica's mother had been under a police investigation. Jessica's little brothers got beat up at school. People ran after Jessica in the hallways calling her a "towel-head" and other, unmentionable names. _That was all her tormenters needed_, Jessica thought, _another excuse to make fun._ Never mind that that she was overweight, pimply, and seeing a shrink.

"It's not my fault," Jessica said finally. "And it's not just me. It's my mom and my brothers. We're different, and they hate us."

"And the hidden door, how did you find it?"

Jessica wiped her nose on her sleeve. "It just appeared in front of me. It does that sometimes when I get bored. My doctor said that it was some sort of problem in my head, and he was trying to find a medicine for it."

"What is on the other side?" Ladrengil poured a thin batter onto the pan in the fire.

"A cave in the middle of a desert island, with tons of junk in the sand all around it. That's where I found this," Jessica brought out the jewel on the chain, but it didn't want to go out. It slipped back under Jessica's nightgown as though an invisible hand moved it. The harder Jessica tried to get a grasp on the chain of the necklace, the more it refused to be held, and Jessica gave up. Ladrengil, who was watching the struggle, vanished in a cloud of smoke as he burned their lunch.

"That's no ordinary jewel," he said at last, just having scraped what ash he could from the pan. "I have no great study in jewels such as that, but it appears to be a Nimruzimra for some foul purpose. That stone shines as though it is made to echo newly spilt blood, and many of the Nimîr who were exiled from Amatthani, unlike my parents, had foul deaths that clung to them. That jewel may be the result of one such vengeance, and the grudge against your family may have put it into your hands. Did the healer tell you to go through the door?"

Jessica nodded.

"Then our mystery may be figured, though we cannot make judgments yet, for I could not read the writing on the jewel. There is a lady of the Nimîr who dwells in Inzilolôrêth, an exile from Amatthani of great wisdom, one from the king's house. We will ask her."

- - -

Just as Jessica thought the prairie would have no end, a dark line on the horizon began to form. Ladrengil started humming and bursting into song at odd moments when all conversation had dwindled away. Whenever she asked him the meaning of the song he was singing, he'd begin rambling about the beauty of Inzilolôrêth; how the golden leaves grew on silver branches, and the forest shimmered with song.

Finally they entered, and she saw that he had meant every word. The trees did glister like silver, and the leaves shown like gold, but no words could express the euphoria it inspired in Jessica, no song could do justice to the spiritual light that blossomed inside her. It left her feeling as though she was in heaven's glory itself.

"How do you say, 'Inzilolôrêth' in your language?" Jessica asked, after gawking upwards so long that her neck ached.

"'Lothlórien', though some still call it, 'Lindórinand'."

"Lothlórien," she tried it on her tongue. It seemed familiar. She tasted the word again. "Lothlórien." Recognition dawned on her. This was a place in The Lord of the Rings! That would make Ladrengil an Elf. She had read those books for a book report last year, impressing her English teacher. She had been saying "Lothlórien" incorrectly the entire time. She had been figuring that she was in one of the many Dungeons and Dragons RPGs that she liked to play. A sudden fear darkened the celestial beauty of the forest around her. _If you really are in your subconscious, why is it pronounced differently in your head? Why are you in a world that you called "the result of Tolkien's racists ideologies"? Why did Ladrengil call himself a Nimîr instead of an Elf? You'd never heard that name for Elves,_ a naughty, disturbing thought whispered in her mind. _What if you really are in a savage medieval land with no family, no proper health care for your leg, and a horrible curse on your skin?_

Distant voices interrupted the doubt and fear rising in Jessica. "_Ai Ladrengil! Mas trevennich?_"

"_Si_!" he laughed, waving. "Nethwen, my family and friends greet us!" He pointed into the forest where three figures ran to them. "See the man with bright gold hair? He is Ariston, one of the fair-kind, my mother's brother's son. The two who trail behind him are Bellas and Silivegil, true folk of this wood and brothers of my wife, Beleth. We must have taken too long in returning; they came to find us."

Ariston arrived first, breathing slightly from the sprint, his cheeks flushed. "_Sen i roch odhron gîn?_" he asked, patting the horse Ladrengil had borrowed from his father.

"_I roch odhron nîn_." Ladrengil nodded.

Bellas came next, laughing and panting. "_Telien uireb, Ariston! Av-deliannen!_" he said and clapped Ariston's shoulder. Then he spied Jessica sitting on the horse, staring at him. "_A Ladrengil, man i hell?_" He reached forward in a natural, affectionate gesture to pat Jessica's cheek. He stopped suddenly, staring at his hand.

"_Baw!_" Ladrengil shouted too late. Bellas collapsed onto the ground before Silivegil's arriving feet.

Ariston and Silivegil turned to Ladrengil, confused. "_Man carnen am Mellas?_" Silivegil said at last.

"_Avo vatho i hell! Rhach um af flâd dîn, telin an nangweth na Ngaladriel_," Ladrengil gestured toward the depths of the forest, almost ranting. The others turned their faces to Jessica.

"Ladrengil, what's going on?" Her voice squeaked, betraying her panic. Ariston and Silivegil were beginning to look very dangerous, and now she saw that they were carrying weapons. Silivegil's hands were straying close to a very big silver hilt by his side.

Ladrengil placed himself between the horse and the angry Elves. "_Gwestannen den beriad!_" he whispered, suddenly appearing very fierce. "_Gwestannen den toged am mar dîn! Avo eitho 'waedh nîn!_"

"_Manen istach i av-dyngich thrach ammen?_" Ariston demanded.

"_Ú-thrach enni_," he replied, waving his arms.

Ariston relaxed, but Silivegil persisted. "_Man carnen am Mellas?_"

Ladrengil's face fell. "_Av-iston. Dan!_" he held up his hand. "_Dan iston i bronnen_."

"_Ni al-vell_," Bellas said from the ground. "_Av-'wannon!_"

"What's going on?" Jessica wailed. "What is everyone saying?"

"Please be quiet, Nethwen," Ladrengil said.

"_Nethwen? Eneth edhellen! E hell elvellon?_" Ariston wondered.

"Wait," said Bellas. "I speak Adûnaic. Nethwen, how did you receive that name?"

"Ladrengil gave it to me. He couldn't say my name."

Ariston shook his head. "_Farn_! I speaks none Adûnaic. Allows me… _Manen pedin tirad min faer dîn?_"

Ladrengil translated, "He wants to look into your mind."

"He wants to look into your mind," Ariston repeated.

"Like your mom did?"

"As my mother did."

"Will it make everything better?"

"Your eyes cannot lie to us," Bellas called from the ground.

"Okay, then do it." Jessica took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind of all thoughts, but all thoughts started to race through her head, unable to slow or be stored away. When she looked into Ariston's eyes, blazing holes were seared through her mind, and memory rushed through her even faster, as though gates had been opened. Her head began to ache, and her lungs refused to work, though this wasn't near so painful as Ladrengil's mother, who had fires in her eyes even when she wasn't cutting through Jessica's head.

Just as the thought that she was going to suffocate passed through her mind, Ariston released her.

"_E al-um_," he said definitively. "_Dan i thrach av-beliatha ammen. Telitham na le_."

Jessica began, "Wha..."

"He says that you are not evil. He offers help."

"Forgives us?" Ariston added hopefully.

- - -

Sergeant Stevenson had seen this a few too many times in his career. Inconsolable parents, an empty bed, and a fresh blanket of Rocky Mountain snow on the ground with a dark cloud hovering in the North. A search party poked in the snow banks outside. CSIs poked around the missing girl's bedroom. Bored deputies poked around the kitchen.

"Ma'am, let's go over this again," he said, heaving himself onto a chair. "What was it that your daughter said last night?"

The mother blotted her red, swollen eyes and clutched her husband's hand. "I found her sitting on the floor by her desk. She told me that she had opened the door in her daymares and found a desert island on the other side. I was going to call the psychiatrist, Dr. Shirman, this morning."

Stevenson nodded, making certain that he had taken note of the doctor's phone number. "And when did you last see her?"

"I heard her go into her bedroom after brushing her teeth."

"Okay, and when did you last see her?"

"When I told her to go to bed, when she had her daymare."

"Do you have any idea where she would run away to?"

Mr. Albright lifted his head for the first time. "My sister's house, she lives across town."

"We already called her, and she hadn't seen Jessica," Mrs. Albright added.

"She doesn't have any friends to go to?"

Mrs. Albright took charge of the questioning again. "Jessica is teased a lot in school. She doesn't have any friends that she visits, or that she tells us about."

Her husband nodded. "She pretended to be sick a few weeks ago."

Stevenson looked at the family portrait on the wall. _Good God,_ he thought_, that girl is almost obese._ He pointed to the portrait on the wall. "Is that recent? The picture is good quality, so we could use it for the posters."

Mrs. Albright leapt up, as though she was glad to be able to do something that could help. "That picture is three years old." She opened a cabinet by the TV and pulled out a messy box of photographs, some in their packages, some not, and started leafing through them. After a few minutes she found the 2001-2002 school pictures, and cut off the largest photo of the wallet-sized copies.

_That poor kid,_ he thought. The fourteen-year-old Jessica Albright glaring at him appeared a little thinner than the eleven-year-old Jessica Albright, but her face looked like a pepperoni and cheese pizza, and her smile resembled a grimace.

"Thanks a bunch, Mrs. Albright. I'll have one of the deputies bring this down to the station right away."

A nervous CSI pulled on his jacket and whispered, "I need to talk to you a second."

They squeezed into the little hallway by the door. Stevenson squinted at the nametag on the CSI's shirt. "Uh, what is it, Mr. Browning?"

Browning lifted up the article of evidence that Stevenson hadn't noticed in his hand. An almost comically squished winter coat was sealed in the bag. "I think we're dealing with a kidnapping."

- - -

Adûnaic translation:

Nimruzimra – Elfstone

Sindarin translations:

Ai Ladrengil! Mas trevennich? – Hail Ladrengil! Where have you been traveling?  
Si! – Here!  
Sen i roch odhron gîn? – This is your father's horse?  
I roch odhron nîn. – The horse of my father.  
Telien uireb, Ariston! Av-deliannen! – Ever a game, Ariston! I wasn't playing!  
A Ladrengil, man i hell? – And Ladrengil, who is the child?  
Baw! – Don't!  
Man carnen am Mellas? – What happened to Bellas?  
Avo vatho i hell! Rhach um af flâd dîn, telin an nangweth na Ngaladriel. – Don't touch the child! A curse is upon her skin; I come for answers from Galadriel.  
Gwestannen den beriad! Gwestannen den toged am mar dîn! Avo eitho 'waedh nîn! – I promised to protect her! I promised to bring her to her home! Don't insult my oath!  
Manen istach i av-dyngich thrach ammen? – How do you know that you didn't bring the curse upon us all?  
Ú-thrach enni. – There is no curse on me.  
Man carnen am Mellas? – What happened to Bellas?  
Av-iston. Dan! Dan iston i bronnen. – I don't know. But! But I know that I survived.  
Ni al-vell. Av-'wannon! – I am weak. I'm not dying!  
Nethwen? Eneth edhellen! E hell elvellon? – Nethwen? An Elven name! Is she the daughter of an Elf-friend?  
Farn! …Manen pedin tirad min faer dîn? – Enough! …How do I say 'to look into her spirit?'  
E al-um. Dan i thrach av-peliatha ammen. Telitham na le. – She isn't evil. But the curse will not spread to us. We will come with you.

_The reviewer's guide:_

Did you understand what was happening?  
Are your Mary Sue alarm bells ringing? If so, why?  
What did you think of the characterization of the Elves?  
Enough Sindarin already?  
What do you think of the our-world plot?  
Did the reactions of Ariston, Bellas, and Silivegil seem realistic to you?  
Does it leave you wanting to read on?  
What grammar or spelling mistakes did you see?  
What bothered you in this chapter while reading it?  
What did you like about it?


End file.
